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Last December, ten-year-old Ally Odeen learned the true meaning of Christmas. After surveying her pile of outgrown toys, an idea occurred to her. Sell it all on eBay! Make millions! But it didn’t take long for Odeen to change her mind.

Upon reading some heartbreaking “wanted” posts on her mom Chris’s Freecycle forum, Odeen decided that she wanted to help families in need. She realized that if she did not, then they would simply have to miss out on Christmas that year. So Odeen set out to begin her great toy giveaway.

With the help of her mom and the Madison Freecycle network, Odeen was able to personalize gift packages for over thirty-five families with toys that were in perfectly good condition, but simply collecting dust in her house.

Odeen’s gift giveaway embodies the core tenets of the Freecycle network: giving back to the community; reusing perfectly good, but rarely used, items; keeping stuff out of landfills; and helping those in need.

The “Other” Economy

Freecycle is a “worldwide gifting economy,” with a mission of “building local communities by keeping good stuff out of landfills,” explains Freecycle founder Deron Beal.

Freecycle facilitates a free exchange of items, and according to Dorothy Krause, one of the three Madison Freecycle group moderators, all posted items must be legal, free and with no strings attached. No barter, discussions or service posts are allowed, she added.

Besides those minor restrictions, anything goes. That is, anything anyone could possibly need. There are four types of posts: an “offer” post, or an item up for grabs; a “wanted” post if someone if seeking something in particular; a “taken” post, politely notifying members that the item has been claimed; and a “received” post, meaning the item has been located.

Items range from the common to the obscure. Krause mentions that in the past people have offered gardening items, appliances, children’s clothing and a range of furniture–from estate furniture to leftovers from rummage sales. She says there have even been offers for houses in situations where they were too good to demolish, but needed to be moved off-site.

“There are people offering fully functional appliances and computers and people offering half a bottle of cologne … and people have a mutual respect for any level of participation,” says Freecycle member Bruce Winkler.

And you never know what someone may need. Chris Odeen says that she has never posted anything that someone has not wanted. She even offered grass plugs that were leftovers from a gardening project and sure enough, someone’s puppy had been ripping up the lawn, and the owner needed the grass to fill in the holes.

The exchanges are arranged exclusively through the Internet. Members must join the Yahoo! group in order to view the posts or to post items themselves. Once accepted into the group, members become part of the email list, where they will receive messages for some, all or none of the transactions, depending on personal preference.

Parties interested in an item respond to the offer and then the owners of the item can choose whom they want to give it to. Once an offer is taken, the conversation naturally moves from the forum to a personal conversation. Typically, the person who wants the item will come to pick it up from the owner within a few days.

Teaching Environmentally Conscious Local Citizens

Beal founded the international grassroots organization in May 2003 in Tucson, Arizona, and according to Beal, membership snowballed from the get-go, amassing eight hundred members within the first month.

Just four years later, Freecycle membership has climbed to 5,528,000 members with 4,556 networks in over ninety countries, according to freecycle.org. The Madison group has 13,828 members from all over Dane County, and was founded November 24, 2003.

Although Beal developed the idea of Freecycle from an environmental perspective, he points out that an unanticipated perk has been a greater strengthening of local community. Many Madison members agree that this is one of the greatest advantages to the network.

“When folks reach out to answer and meet others’ needs, they support not just another person or family. They support the greater community,” Chris Odeen says. “This kind of caring for your neighbor has a ripple effect.”

Beal hopes that Freecycle members learn a bit about recycling and reuse in addition to scoring free stuff. Instead of sending perfectly usable or easily refurbished items to the landfill where they will accumulate and remain, why not give them to someone who can find use for them?

“The real purpose of Freecycle is to reduce waste, save precious resources and ease the burden on our landfills,” Krause says. “Freecycle accomplishes this by offering area residents a way to pass unneeded items on to other local residents who can make continued use of it.”

And Freecycle members are doing just that. According to Beal, they assist in keeping more than five hundred tons out of landfills daily.

“If you stacked all the exchanged items from this past year in garbage trucks, with several tons per truck, it would amount to five times the height of Mt. Everest,” he says.

Quit the Consumerism

In addition to reducing waste, the network simultaneously serves as an outlet to bypass consumerism. Why go out and buy new items when someone in your neighborhood is offering exactly what you need for free?

“We’re helping people avoid the whole consumerism thing by giving renewed life to things rather than going out and buying new ones,” Krause said.

And it is always satisfying realizing the potential in your piled-away, rarely used stuff.

“It feels good making something available that you don’t have any use for,” Winkler says.

Nineteen-year-old UW–Madison student Kimberly Koch agrees. She recently joined the Madison group and has only had positive experiences thus far, she says. Koch cited one particular instance, where she was able to give away old spice jars that she no longer had any use for.

“When someone came to pick up the spice jars–even though they are just old, empty spice jars that would have just been recycled–here is someone who gets to use them. That is kind of gratifying,” Koch says.

Find out more on freecycle.org

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